NEW YORK — On Saturday afternoon, deep inside Madison Square Garden, I asked Connecticut big man Phillip Nolan how his Huskies were planning to prepare for Michigan State’s Branden Dawson, the rugged, athletic forward who lit up Virginia in the Sweet 16.

Nolan thought for a moment, then said, “Nnamdi. Do you know who Nnamdi is?”

“I won’t compare him to Dawson,” Nolan said with a big grin on his face, “but he’s a pretty strong and athletic. We just basically let him go wild in practice, let him push people around and get us ready. We feel like trying to contain him in practice all year, we’re pretty ready for whatever. He makes everyone have to be on alert and bring their ‘A’ game, or he’s going to bully you.”

Nnamdi Amilo is a walk-on for the Huskies. He's listed at 6-2, 200 pounds. On Sunday, in the locker room a handful of minutes after the Huskies glided off the court following their stunning 60-54 Elite Eight win against Michigan State, I told him what Nolan had told me.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s in a good way,” he said, still smiling. “When I tried out for the team, I just tried to do anything I could in practice. I know these guys are taller than me, bigger than me and more skilled than me, but I want to make up for that and get them better. That’s my role on the team.”

And though it’s impossible to draw direct statistical connections from Amilo’s practice contributions to the performance of his teammates during games, of course, the corroborating evidence from the seventh-seeded Huskies’ win against fourth-seeded Michigan State is solid. Dawson, after going for 24 points and 10 rebounds against Virginia, had just five points and eight rebounds against Connecticut.

Michigan State’s Adreian Payne, the 6-10 senior who can be a dominant force in the paint, was forced outside and took 10 of his 14 field goal attempts from beyond the arc. “It was kind of hard to get the ball down low,” he admitted in his postgame press conference.

Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not.

“You know,” fellow UConn walk-on Pat Lenehan told me, “because you’ve seen them doing the same thing in practice with Nnamdi. You see how those things translate over and how it actually helps out, what he’s doing.”

Amilo, who is from New Fairfield, Conn., wasn’t quite so quick to absorb any of the credit from Nolan, Brimah, DeAndre Daniels, Niels Giffey, Lasan Kromah and Tyler Olander, the Huskies who helped keep the Spartan big men at bay.

“I’m sure I have my role, but that’s all their toughness right there,” he said. “I’m just helping them along. I mean, when they push around guys like Adreian Payne, though, that puts a smile on my face. I’m not going to lie.”

The fullback-looking sophomore played only five minutes in two games all season. He didn’t commit a single foul in those five minutes. Coach Kevin Ollie has an incredibly slow whistle when Amilo is playing defense in practice. “It’s not like I’m getting hit, too, but I definitely get some leeway with that kind of stuff,” he said, the grin still there.

The goal is to get the regulars used to playing through contact. And Amilo, who is pretty much all muscle, brings strong contact. I asked freshman center Amida Brimah about him.

“You see how big he is?” he replied, an ironic question from a legitimate 7-footer. “He always pushes you, makes you work harder. That’s how we got better, because he’s always in practice full of energy. Playing against someone like Nnamdi, someone who’s strong like that, always gets you better.”

Amilo won’t play any minutes in the Final Four at Cowboys Stadium, but he’ll play a big role, as always, in the Huskies’ chances of winning another national title.